A Realized Potential
by Firehelper
Summary: Today, humanity's dream for the stars seems distant, but it did not always seem so. This is the story of a humanity with a realized potential, not one left on the shelf, but one where human curiosity will change the face of galactic politics forever (AU human history narrative)
1. Prologue

Humanity has always dreamed for the stars. In antiquity astronomers predicted the skies turning black, or wondered at stars that could be seen even in daylight before disappearing. Then with telescopes humanity discovered that they were no longer at the center of the universe, but rather in a part of the universe that was as inconspicuous as the expanse upon expanse that surrounded them. Then later still humanity made rockets and ascended into the heavens, first to the edge of the atmosphere, but then to the moon to a body of rock not part of the earth.

Some histories end here. Some histories have humanity losing interest in this, retiring their rockets and settling for mere robots to explore the faces of other worlds. However, that history is not this history. Here is the story of a humanity that did not lose its footing, nor its curiosity, but rather would emerge onto galactic stage as mysterious and would later save the galaxy itself, all because its people did not fear the unknown and would not stick to that which was merely known. This is the story of a humanity of realized potential and it all started in 1977 when the dream of Gerald K. O'Neill was successfully pushed through congress rather than forever sitting on the back table never to be remembered.

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Author's note:

This is going to be a narrative telling the story of what I think might have been (if our reality was indeed in the mass effect universe).


	2. Chapter 1: Pre FTL Humanity (1977-2290)

Humans had always had big dreams, but those dreams had always been hampered by the lack of hope the rest of humanity placed in big ideas. However, this time was different. No longer was humanity held back by an unwilling public, instead public perception of space following the moon landings was at an all time high and coupled with increasing energy prices, space had become the wanted alternative. Following the passage of the Space Act of 1977, the United States set its eyes on large scale space colonization. The budget of NASA instantly increased from the 1% of the federal budget in 1976 to 10% with some money taken out, with large protest, from the defence budget. And with this a new space race started, not anymore to be the first in space, but to be the first with people living in space and with solar power between the energy strapped nations of Western Europe and North America spearheaded by mainly NASA and with a marginal contribution form the ESA and the Soviet Block.

Following Gerald K. O'Neill's plan for a solar powered reality, NASA began the construction of a fleet of space shuttles to begin the construction of a moon base and space colonies. However, the Soviet Union, already embarrassed by its inability to match the initial flight to the moon, managed not only to land a man on the moon but also establish the first space colony at the historical site of the Sea of Tranquility in 1981 to American embarrassment. Subsequent construction of a mass driver resulted in the construction of a Stanford Torus with associated solar energy manufacturing equipment in 1991 with designs stolen from NASA in one of the largest espionage coups in earth history. America and the ESA would counter with their own moon base in 1983 and Stanford Torus in 1993.

The completion of the Stanford Torus, each with a population of 10,000 and the establishment of microwave transmission based solar energy satellite systems set the enterprising nations of the increasingly united EU and America and Canada on the road to energy independence with large scale hydrogen car production beginning from the surplus of energy coopted to hydrolyze water. The Economic Collapse of the Soviet Union itself was staved off by the increase in energy abundance. The unlimited source of solar energy further increased the gap between the superpowers and their allied states and the non-aligned nations. Plans for larger and more numerous colonies to help allow for more living space were put into motion in 1995.

in 1996, the wealth disparity became too much and the cash strapped middle east fell into large scale sectarian violence with only Israel emerging relatively unscathed due to American Support. Soviet support to certain parties resulted in a united islamic state in the middle east aligned with the Soviet Union. The rapidity of the collapse of the governments cause many of the remaining non-aligned states to enter into their own economic and military union centered around China and India resulting in the creation of the Af-Asian Union and a Solar Energy System by the year 2000. The remaining nonaligned states quickly petitioned to join at least economically with one of these three unions.

In 2012 Rapid repopulation continued to be a world problem and the three blocks came together in the first tripartite summit to discuss the creation of a single unified arm to help alleviate this issue. Colonization of the moon and Mars remained too distant a goal. However the large space colonies envisioned by Gerald K. O'Neill, each housing over 10,000,000 people seemed in sight. This summit resulted in the System Alliance for Space Colonization and it was agreed that the cost of development would be shared by all three parties for the benefit of humanity. Each of the blocs started construction on a carbon nanotube based space elevator in the year 2017. Three small asteroids were placed in Low earth orbit and acted as the counterweights for each of the space elevators. These metallic asteroids would slowly be transformed into large space stations by the year 2025.

Facilitated by continued extraction of material from the moon, the first large space colony was founded on the far side of the moon. This space colony was a binary O'Neill cylinder station and was designed to hold 10,000,000 people. The colony was built from modular components and had a length that increased in segments allowing for gradual population of the station. The station was completed by 2050 with a length of 36 kilometers, slightly smaller than the citadel itself. Additional space colonies were being constructed to house the large number of people wishing to emigrate from the increasingly overpopulated earth. This process of building space colonies continued unceasingly until 2110 when a majority of human population growth ended up on an increasing number of space colonies (1211 colonies by 2110).

In 2110, the first act of space piracy occurred and the nullification of the Outer Space Treaty and the creation of the first warships armed with mass drivers and lasers for military purposes resulted in the short Colony War of 2114. In this war twenty colonies were totally destroyed as rapidly constructed warships battled in the space above earth. A total of 315 million died in the colonies while an additional 460 million died due to orbital bombardment on earth. The war ended with the dissolution of all nation states and colony militaries and the establishment of the Systems Alliance Military Branch and Parliament along with a mandatory tax on all human colonies established the Systems Alliance as the primary political and military human organization. The Systems Alliance delegated a majority of laws to the space colonies which were, apart from the mandatory tax and cross-space trade regulations, entirely locally governed.

Peaceful expansion continued with colonies being founded on Mars and fusion refueling stations at the gas giants in the 22nd century.

The most important discovery of human history ended up being made at the dawn of the 24th century: the space-fold drive. The population of humanity stood at 125 billion people with a constant 1% growth rate since the 21st century. Of those 125 billion, 110 billion lived on one of nine thousand space colonies, 7 billion on the moon, 3 billion on mars and the remaining 5 billion on various stations scattered throughout the solar system and all were loosely governed by the Systems Alliance.

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AN: This is all reasonable based on the book High Frontier, which was also the inspiration for the space setting of gundam


End file.
